


I miss you, I love you

by DinosaurTheology



Series: Johnny and Dora [14]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Prison, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 13:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12212631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: Amy visits Jake in prison. Jericho Supermax is a dark place, but it's a lot better with the sun sitting across the table from you.





	I miss you, I love you

**Author's Note:**

> B99 is back! I'm so happy. I love writing for this show, writing these characters... it makes me giddy all over.

An hour wasn't enough. Given the circumstances, how circumscribed their “touching time” really was and the public nature of a prison—Amy had read about Foucault's notion of Panopticon in college and never really understood how it could drive a person stark raving mad until now—an hour really wasn't enough at all. Yet it was also far, far too long to sit so close to someone you wanted to touch so bad that you could feel his electricity sizzling on your skin, raising the small, fine hairs, the air so hot between you that it feels like it might burn you crispy.

 

At first their conversations are so banal that they might as well be between strangers. How's the food here? Fine. Is your mattress comfortable? It's okay. The weather has been really nice outside. I don't really know cause if I went into the yard with the gen pop guys I'd probably get disemboweled. Is there anyone to talk to? I'm kinda making friends with my cellmate; he might be getting a crush on me, though, cause he looks at me a lot like he's getting sorta... hungry.

 

So, okay, banal conversations in a looking glass hell. Still not the kind of things that two who have shared the deepest intimacy with each other should talk about, right? Matters grow closer to normalcy over time, even in a place where the very concept of normal is a cruel joke. “So,” he'll ask, “how're shakes at the 99?”

 

“Good,” she says, and then, realizing it's a lie, “okay. I mean, we're solving cases.”

 

“That's kinda what you do at a police station, yeah. I meant with everybody.”

 

“We're...” She meant to say good, again, or even okay, but can't manage. “We're... well, I was gonna tell you that we were handling it, or something, but that's not the truth. We're really not handling it very well at all.”

 

“What's happening?” He leans forward, dark eyes so full of concern for her petty problems even while he's trapped in this hell-hole that she feels herself swelling up so large with love for him that she' wonders if she'll actually burst under the strain of struggling to contain it.

 

“Charles is not holding up super well,” she says. “His hair sort of turned white, like a character in some old, scary movie when he sees the ghost or the vampire or whatever, and he just sort of drifts around the precinct all listless and miserable. It's hard to stand seeing him like that. I mean, sometimes he even talks in his sleep. Guy freakin dreams about you.”

 

He scrunches his face in a severely adorable manner. “Not, like... sex dreams, though, right? Cause I'd be flattered but--”

 

“No,” she says. “God, no. Or at least I don't think so. None of the ones he's had at work have been, at least. I don't know about when he's at home.”

 

“I don't think I want to know,” he says. “How're Holt and Terry?”

 

“Sarge is devastated,” she says. “He only works out, like, four times a week now—strictly just maintenance stuff, too—and isn't even eating yogurt right now. He's sworn it off until you're proven innocent and released, says that's his cross to bear.”

 

“But his gains!”

 

“I know,” she says. “But your case comes first, even before them.”

 

He wipes away a tear. “What about Holt?”

 

“He said, and I quote, 'With neither Peralta nor Diaz present the precinct is simultaneously quieter and less violent.' And then he took in this really big, deep breath.”

 

“Oh my God,” he says. “My sweet God. That is... probably the deepest, most emotional thing anyone has ever said about me.”

 

“What about the first time I said 'I love you?'”

 

“Well, yeah, Ames, that was great, but... think about it... Holt said something and then drew a deep breath—really deep?”

 

“Made his cheeks and chest puff out like Louis Armstrong,” she said.

 

“Wow... I mean, that is like the Holt version of Jacob rending his garments or cutting off his ear or something.”

 

She thinks about it for a moment, and then laughs. “Yeah, you're right.” Her laughter fades. “I miss you so much.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And?”

 

He blinks back tears. “I miss you too, duh. Dummy. I was... y'know... trying to be all tough. Thanks for ruining it. Why you gotta be a bitch, Amy?”

 

She giggles. “Don't make me laugh when I'm about to cry, Jake. Seriously... I'm an ugly crier already, I know it, and laughing like a donkey at the same time is not gonna be a good look on me.”

 

He silently links his foot with hers under the table. She prays that none of the correctional officers will notice, basks in the warm, gentle pressure. “Any look is a good look on you, babe.”

 

“Thanks, Johnny.”

 

“Any time, Dora.”

 

The sit in silence for a long moment, hold each other with radiant gazes hot enough to blister, soft enough to heal. He undresses her with his eyes because he knows what a good body is hiding under that lumpy, melon colored pantsuit and she fucks him right there on the table hard enough to break it, break his pelvis, leave her sore and staggering for days if not weeks. Neither can stand to hold this violent locking of the eyes nor drop it. Her pedal pulse quickens against the hardness of his shin.

 

The moment ends. All moments do. That's life's great tragedy and joy, isn't it? Touching time flickers by so fast, today, that she barely even realizes that he's touched her even though they cling like otters lost at sea. “Be careful,” she whispers in his ear. “Don't let your guard down. Don't trust anybody, even if they look just like Tim Meadows.”

 

“I will,” he says. “I promise. And I won't, I promise that too.”

 

“I love you.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I swear I'm gonna knee you in the balls, Han Solo. It wasn't even funny last time.”

 

“I'm sorry, just... I love you, too.”

 

That's all she gets to sustain her for another month. She walks purposefully out of the prison, past sullen, leering inmates, bare walls and guards with hard faces and manages not to weep until she's behind the wheel of her car.

 

 


End file.
